Kabir (1440 – 1518)
Indian poet, mystic and philosopher, and one of the Northern India Sants.
When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart;
He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you will know indeed that He transcends this universe.
O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.
If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death?
It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body:
If He is found now, He is found then,
If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.
If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.
He is the Ultimate Rest unbounded: He has spread His form of love throughout all the world.
From that Ray which is Truth, streams of new forms are perpetually springing: and He pervades those forms.
When the bride is one
with her lover,
who cares about
the wedding party?
There the Unstruck Music eddies around the Infinite One;
There in the midst the Throne of the Unheld is shining, whereon the great Being sits —
Millions of suns are shamed by the radiance of a single hair of His body.
I do not quote from the scriptures;
I simply see what I see.
Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world! consider it well, and know that this is your own country.
On the harp of the road what true melodies are being sounded! and its notes pierce the heart:
There the Eternal Fountain is playing its endless life-streams of birth and death.
A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up.
Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false.
I am looking at you,
You at him,
Kabir asks, how to solve
This puzzle —
You, he, and I?
O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time.
A drop
Melting into the sea,
Everyone can see.
But the sea
Absorped
In a drop —
A rare one
can follow!
I've burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand.
Now I'll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me.
It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs;
For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God.
It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be;
The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter —
Even Raidas was a seeker after God.
Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction.
Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.
He comes to the Path of the Infinite on whom the grace of the Lord descends: he is freed from births and deaths who attains to Him.
Kabîr says: "It cannot be told by the words of the mouth, it cannot be written on paper: It is like a dumb person who tastes a sweet thing — how shall it be explained?"
Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way.
They call Him Emptiness who is the Truth of truths, in Whom all truths are stored!
There within Him creation goes forward, which is beyond all philosophy; for philosophy cannot attain to Him: There is an endless world, O my Brother! and there is the Nameless Being, of whom naught can be said.
Only he knows it who has reached that region: it is other than all that is heard and said.
No form, no body, no length, no breadth is seen there: how can I tell you that which it is?